Revenge lead might unearth kidnappers

Press, 21 July 1976, Page 9

Revenge lead might unearth kidnappers

NZPA-Reuter

Chowchilla, California

Investigators putting together a jigsaw of clues believe they “are not far away” from identifying the gunmen, motivated perhaps by revenge, who kidnapped 26 schoolchildren and their bus-driver last week, United Press International reports.

They have found clothing, notebooks, the bus driver’s wallet,'and the shoes of the victims near a remote road in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County. Sheriffs deputies in Alameda County, where the victims dug their way to freedom from a buried van, provided California and Nevada law-enforcement agencies with better descriptions of the three men. The investigators have not ruled out that there may have been others involved in the

, kidnapping last week. s Officials' in Chowchilla ! and at San Quentin Prison I also checked out a tip that > three inmates plotted a kidnap last year when they ■ were behind bars. An infor- ■ mant said one of the trio ■ had “some reason for re- • venge” against a community t in the area of the kidnap- > ping. , f The bus; was hijacked as it • was dropping the children at 1 their homes after a day at : summer school. They were i in the buried van for 16

hours before they made their way to freedom, the driver, Mr Frank Ray, aged 55, leading the way. The police said their informant, now in a nearby gaol told his story about the revenge plot before the children escaped on Friday.

But he said that the unspecified grudge was against the tiny community of Raymond, 20 miles east of Chowchilla. It was not known whether one town had been mistaken for another by the kidnappers.